|
By
Brian Skoloff
Associated Press
August 27, 2007
(AP) Picture a beautiful beach spanning miles of coastline, gently lapped by aqua-colored water - and sprinkled with glass.
Ouch? Think again. It feels just
like sand, but with granules that sparkle in the sunlight.
Faced with the constant erosion of Florida's beaches, Broward
County officials are exploring using recycled glass - crushed
into tiny grains and mixed with regular sand - to help fill
gaps.
It's only natural, backers of the idea say, since sand is the
main ingredient in glass.
"Basically, what we're doing is taking the material and
returning it back to its natural state," said Phil Bresee,
Broward's recycling manager.
The county would become the first in the nation to combine
disposal of recycled glass with bolstering beach sand
reserves, Bresee said.
"You reduce waste stream that goes to our landfills and
you generate materials that could be available for our
beaches," said Paden Woodruff of the state Department of
Environmental Protection.
Sand is a valuable commodity in South Florida, where
beach-related business generates more than $1 billion a year
for Broward alone.
Sand to replenish eroded beaches is typically dredged from the
ocean floor and piped to shore - about 13 million tons of it
since 1970 in Broward. That's enough sand to fill the Empire
State Building more than 12 times over.
But with reef preservation restricting future dredge sites,
sand is becoming scarce. And the price is rising as
construction and fuel costs rise and dredge operations are
pushed farther offshore.
In 2005, dredging brought in about 2.6 million tons of sand at
a cost of $45 million. A similar operation in 1991 brought in
about 1.3 million tons of sand for just $9 million.
The county would create only 15,600 tons of the glass material
each year, not enough to solve its sand shortage, but enough
to create a reserve for filling eroded spots before they can
worsen, Bresee said.
Most of Broward County's 24 miles of beaches are considered
critically eroded, and more than a quarter of Florida's
1,350-mile coastline falls into the same category. About $80
million is spent annually restoring Florida's beaches.
The glass-sand idea grew from the unintentional consequences
of an ocean dump site off Northern California near Fort Bragg.
Beginning in 1949, garbage - including lots of glass - was
dumped over a cliff into the ocean, said Charles Finkl, a
marine geologist with Boca Raton-based Coastal Planning and
Engineering.
Finkl said that while organic material degraded over the
years, the glass broke up and became smooth as it tumbled in
the surf. The area is now known locally as Glass Beach.
Another dump site in Hawaii produced similar results, Finkl
said.
"You talk about glass beach and people have images of
sharp glass shards but it's not that way at all," he
said.
Recycled glass also has been used for beaches along Lake Hood
in New Zealand and on the Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao.
It's unclear how much the project would cost Broward County,
or if the project is even feasible. The state and county have
so far spent about $600,000 just on tests and engineering.
The county tested a small patch of glass sand on a dry patch
of beach last year, using sensors to measure effects of heat
and moisture. Scientists have also conducted laboratory tests
that show organisms and wildlife can thrive in the material
just like natural sand, they said. The county is awaiting a
permit to test glass sand in the surf zone.
Some people are raising caution flags.
"There's no way that you can predict all the
environmental consequences of an action like this," said
Dennis Heinemann, a senior scientist with the Ocean
Conservancy. "There always will be unforeseen
consequences."
One example sits just off shore.
The state and Broward County are spending millions to remove
some 700,000 old tires that were placed on the ocean floor off
Fort Lauderdale in the 1970s and fastened together to create
an artificial reef. The tires came loose, moving around and
scouring the ocean floor and wedging against natural reefs,
killing coral.
© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed.
|
